the speaker offered increased revenue from taxes. with less than two weeks to go, they thought they had a deal. it became known as the grand bargain. >> it's not every day that the speaker comes to see the president quietly and says, "i'm willing to do a deal" that everybody knows is going to be dangerous for him politically. >> narrator: back at the capitol, boehner would have to convince the new republicans to go along. >> john boehner discovers that deal making is not part of the program for a lot of these freshmen who have just come into office on the strength of conviction politics. >> these freshmen understood what washington was about and chose not to be of washington. and so they wouldn't cave like a typical politician did because they weren't typical politicians. they got elected on principle, not on politics. >> narrator: as the week wore on, obama began to worry about the grand bargain. >> he calls boehner that night and leaves a voicemail. boehner doesn't pick up. >> the president said, "get back to me tonight, john." the